Midival Punditz is riding high on the success of their fourth studio album light. Members Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj share their experience of collaborating with artistes like Kutle Khan and Todd Michaelsen
You guys have been away for quite a while, six years. What were you up toIJ
Gaurav: This is our fourth studio album. It’s been conceptualised to be presented live with a full band, in its entirety with all songs being performed in the same flow as in the studio version. The album has strong roots in various styles of Indian folk music and also our signature style of electronica. The entire album is like one full show, performed live.
Tell us something aboutlight. How long had you been working on itIJ
Gaurav: light was very important to the conceptualisation of this album. The entire album goes through degrees of brightness or darkness and that pretty much the reason why we called it light. It encapsulated the entire essence of the album. We realised that today, the lighting — whether it’s used on stage, on visuals or in the music itself — is really important. Even in music, darkness and light relate to moods. It took us close to one-and-a-half years to write the album. The tracks were all written one after the other because we wanted a single string of thought to tie-in the album.
How is it different from your last album Hello Hello or your previous workIJ
Gaurav: We have worked with Indian classical music in our previous releases, but this time around while we were sketching the album out, we naturally felt a leaning towards folk music. The sound we were trying to achieve kind of suggested a very Indian folk influence. A wide range of Indian folk-Rajasthani, Punjabi, UP (Uttar Pradesh) as well as Carnatic music — is represented in the album.
We watched the video for Baanwarey, it was a visual treat. What was the thought that went behind the song as well as the videoIJ
Gaurav: That's a question more for the creators of the Video: Santana Issar and Naasha Mehta. We had approached Santana Issar and Naasha Mehta for doing the visuals for our album and the video was completely their concept. They drew inspiration from the Indian mythical creature called Navgunjara (creature made up of nine animals). They also were inspired by the kantha artform and drew the entire video by hand. We were very excited to see the song work out this way.
You got Kutle Khan, Papon, Malini Awasthi and Todd Michaelsen on board for this album. What different sounds were you focussing on providing during the processIJ
Tapan: It has been wonderful working with them. light has a great ensemble of collaborators who have given a new dimension to our music. When we are writing a new track, around half way through the writing process, we kind of know who we would like to collaborate with to complete the story of the track. Also, over the years, we had developed a great admiration for the folk singers we’ve worked with, and wanted to explore that. Indian folk has a certain rustic and unfinished beauty to it, which we wanted to tap into. So, we collaborated Malini Awasthi, Papon, Kutle Khan, flautist Pandit Ajay Prasanna, Baiju Dharmajan among others, to showcase various folk styles from Rajasthan and UP as also some Carnatic influences. We’ve also worked with Todd (Michaelsen) on Don’t let go, who has been a collaborator with Karsh Kale and we have heard him on Karsh’s albums before so when we wanted an English singer, he was pretty much our 1st choice.
Personal favourite tracks from the albumIJ
Tapan: These changes every few weeks for us. For some time we individually like a track and think that’s a favourite and then that changes again to a different track.
Tell us something about your individual projects that you pursue on the side.
Gaurav: We have always had our side projects going on simoultaneouslythrought the years. Tapan runs a technology company and I have a music production company. I have also released a solo music project called Grain where I released my debut album last year.
EDM is still going strong. What do you think will follow nextIJ
Tapan: EDM has become associated with only one style of dance music and that, in my opinion, is more limiting than encouraging. As a result of being associated with the pop style of dance music, a lot of artistes like us have started to hate the term, as it is so restricting. This new pop style of dance music is rather predictable and yes the genre has a sizable following but it’s not for us. Over the last couple of years India has become a hotspot for entertainment in general, which includes comedy acts, dance acts, live bands, DJs, everything and not just electronica or EDM. The electronica scene in India is growing rapidly and it has got to do a lot with the fact that more and more festivals and other venues for performance are coming up now. This wasn’t the case when we started and it’s really exciting to see the scene push forward.
The artistes and the promoters are the backbone of any scene and as long as artists keep releasing unique and original music and promoters keep supporting them by giving them a stage to perform on, we feel the electronica scene in India will become a truly international phenomenon.
Gaurav: Dance music is here to stay. Currently EDM (as they say) is ruling the scene and very soon it will be something else. EDM, as we have come to know is a commercial side of electronica and more like the ‘flavour of the month.’ I’m sure there will be another commercial genre that will take its place pretty soon.
Which contemporary artist would you like to work withIJ
Gaurav: I’d like to collaborate with Apparat, london Grammar.
Tapan: Thom Yorke, M.I.A and The Dø.